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George Allen’s Back to Battle Energy Bills

George Allen, the former Republican governor of Virginia who was once a rising star in Republican politics, has returned to view as head of a new conservative energy lobby.

Mr. Allen is the front man for the American Energy Freedom Center, whose purpose, he said in a Webcast on Tuesday, is to stop Democratic energy and global warming legislation and to encourage increased exploitation of domestic energy supplies including coal, offshore oil and nuclear power.

In the Webcast, in which he sits at a kitchen table, Mr. Allen said the legislation now before the House would raise Americans’ energy bills by $260 a month. He was uncertain about the source of the estimate, which is several times higher than figures from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Congressional Budget Office.

He said the American people would “make the right decisions” about energy and climate issues if they are properly educated. He promised monthly kitchen-table webcasts to provide that schooling.

Mr. Allen was considered a credible contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination until he was caught on tape during his 2006 Senate campaign calling a 20-year-old campaign volunteer of Indian descent “macaca.” “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” he said to the young man, who worked for his campaign opponent, Senator James Webb. Mr. Allen lost the election and all but disappeared from public life.

The American Energy Freedom Center is affiliated with the Institute for Energy Research, a non-profit research group that says it is dedicated to free-market solutions to energy and environmental challenges. The institute is directed by Robert Bradley Jr., a former Enron executive, and has received funding from oil companies and other industry sources.

Like Rip Van Winkle, this guy going to wake up and discover an America that does not remind him of what he used to know. Welcome to America, baby.

Allen’s timing could not be more impeccable. Oil prices are steadily rising, reminding drivers of $4+ gal gas, an auto industry poised to reinvent itself and a renewed demand for a comprehensive energy policy. And here comes Mr. Allen, with a new version of Drill, baby, Drill. What can we say about this initiative? DOA? Yes, I think so.

“Mr. Allen said the legislation now before the House would raise Americans’ energy bills by $260 a month,” an amount considerably higher than other estimates by the CBO and EPA–but he couldn’t identify the source or sources of this figure? This does not suggest thorough research in preparing his statement for this Webcast.

Your summary of the “macaca” incident that damaged his campaign for re-election to the Senate was accurate, but left out one detail. The young man of Indian descent whom he bade “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” is a lifelong United States citizen born in Virginia.

The price of oil is up now–because speculators are betting that the recession/depression is easing–that demand will go up–and that inflation will go up.

The value of the dollar is not down.

And the only people peddling the idea that we’re head for some sort of hyper-inflation/Weimer Republic currency crisis are either selling gold–or right wing ideologues pushing for budgetary austerity–solely because they are opposed to the spending the President supports.

Here’s radical idea Leah–but please-consider it.

Instead of just offering up your opinion as fact, truth, reality–why not offer sources/citations that SUPPORT your opinion?

Here’s one that supports mine.

I quote:

“Are Wall Street speculators driving up gasoline prices?

WASHINGTON — Oil and gasoline prices are rising fast as Memorial Day weekend approaches, but not because supplies are tight or demand is high.

U.S. crude-oil inventories are at their highest levels in almost two decades, and demand has fallen to a 10-year low, but crude oil prices have climbed more than 70 percent since mid-January to a six-month high of $62.04 on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, although refiners are operating at less than 85 percent of capacity, which leaves them plenty of room to churn out more gasoline if demand rises during the summer driving season, the price of gasoline at the pump has climbed 28 cents a gallon from a month earlier to $2.33.

This time, Wall Street speculators — some of them recipients of billions of dollars in taxpayers’ bailout money — may be to blame.”

See-Leah–this is how we move it beyond the my opinion/your opinion, na-nah-foo-foo realm..

And into the sort of reasoned, fact-based, serious and respectable debate that I have to believe the NYTimes and the staff there, who are investing their very lives in providing us with this forum, keep hoping will break out.

You forget or ignore oil is subsidized by $1.50-$3/gal depending on how one accounts it. By the likes of the WSJ, Economist Mag and many other oil, other rightwing experts who are honest, something you, Allen, most repubs have a hard time with..

Our dollar is low because last yr we bought $500B of oil which 30% went directly to our enemies like Iran, Russia, oil dictators and terrorists because oil is fungible. This means any oil bought drives up the price.

So your post directly supports our enemies. What do you call someone who does that? I know what I call them, you, Allen, traitors, anyone who isn’t trying too cut their, our oil use is too.

Virginia is a mildly friendly solar State, but Mr. Allen can benefit from subsidies already in place, whicht are apparently not raising his bill by much. I doubt he’s even noticed. To help him go solar, the state will give him and his fellow Virginia residents:

$1000 plus $0.12/kWh above the retail rate for the solar energy that his solar panels will produce for the next 25 years or so. He can find out more at the utility website: //www.gpsgenpartners.com

Maybe Mr Allen would see the light of reason if he did some simple calculations to see how the cost of pollution and its subsequent cleanups would affect the cost of so called cheap energy.

GE dumped toxins from its PCB business directly in the Hudson, and is now paying close to 150 milion for an “initial cleanup and study” which is part of the Superfund program. It is so shit scared of the eventual part of the cleanup, that it is chalenging the Superfund law in the courts. (The article appeared in Green Inc a few weeks back)

So, if states like Tenn, WVA, PA etc started to charge the coal companies a charge per million gallons of sludge it dumped in the rivers, or a flat charge for mountaintop removal, your energy bill may well go higher than the $260 as quoted by Mr. Allen.

So lets account for ALL the variables, and then try and solve this energy equation.

Congratulations to Mr Allen for having the courage to spell out the truth and defend Americans from Obama’s criminal Global Warming/cap and trade hoax. No doubt radicals will ridicule and demonize Allen as per Obama’s/Alinsky’s rules for radicals.

Allen has the backing of the more than than 700 international scientists dissent over man-made global warming claims. They are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. //www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3562/218/

Additionally, more than 31,000 U.S. scientists have signed onto a petition that states, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate…” //www.petitionproject.org/index.html

General Electric is among those helping Obama brainwash us with the man-made global warming myth. Gore, Soros, Goldman Sachs, Obama’s Chicago Climate Exchange friends, the U.N., etc. are also helping with the brainwashing, eager to get the cap and trade scam going because they expect to make billions and increase their power at our expense.

GE, for example, has bombarded us with daily propaganda — through its NBC networks, that includes MSNBC and CNBC — to make us swallow the scam. Why? Because they stand to make BILLIONS from the scam at our expense. Not only is GE the largest wind turbine generator maker, but it may benefit as the sole “secondary market” trader of the cap and trade credits.

We pray that honest leaders – both Democrat and Republican – are able to save us from Obama’s criminal global warming/cap-and-trade scam.

This is pretty sad. This group couldn’t care less for the merits of the energy issue or climate change. They just want to scare people (wait, I mean “properly educate” people) just to protect what they perceive as their business interests. So they get “rent-a-pol” to be their face.

Luckily, some big energy firms, like BP, or Xcel, are getting out in front to develop the future of energy, which will be renewable, and less tied to petroleum.

The members of the American Energy Freedom Center care only about themselves, and the long-term energy security and financial health of the country be damned.

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